Then they plunged into a discussion of the winter's plans. The day service department and its employment agency was to go on at the New Union House, with Mrs. Jessup as manager; the present establishment was to be run as a hotel and restaurant, and the depot for the cooked food delivery.
Mrs. Thorvald and her husband were installed by themselves in another new venture; a small laundry outside the town. This place employed several girls steadily, and the motor wagon found a new use between meals, in collecting and delivering laundry parcels.
"It simplifies it a lot—to get the washing out of the place and the girls off my mind," said Diantha. "Now I mean to buckle down and learn the hotel business—thoroughly, and develop this cooked food delivery to perfection."
"Modest young lady," smiled her mother. "Where do you mean to stop—if ever?"
"I don't mean to stop till I'm dead," Diantha answered; "but I don't mean to undertake any more trades, if that is what you mean. You know what I'm after—to get 'housework' on a business basis, that's all; and prove, prove, PROVE what a good business it is. There's the cleaning branch—that's all started and going well in the day service. There's the washing—that's simple and easy. Laundry work's no mystery. But the food part is a big thing. It's an art, a science, a business, and a handicraft. I had the handicraft to start with; I'm learning the business; but I've got a lot to learn yet in the science and art of it."
"Don't do too much at once," her mother urged. "You've got to cater to people as they are."
"I know it," the girl agreed. "They must be led, step by step—the natural method. It's a big job, but not too big. Out of all the women who have done housework for so many ages, surely it's not too much to expect one to have a special genius for it!"
Her mother gazed at her with loving admiration.
"That's just what you have, Dina—a special genius for housework. I wish there were more of you!"
"There are plenty of me, mother dear, only they haven't come out. As soon as I show 'em how to make the thing pay, you'll find that we have a big percentage of this kind of ability. It's all buried now in the occasional 'perfect housekeeper.'